GM says it will hire 500 new IT pros for its Austin Innovation Center from a pool of 46,000 applicants.

Despite widespread skepticism, General Motors Co. appears serious about in-sourcing the major slice of its information technology business – including the development of advanced in-car infotainment systems.

The maker plans to open a new Information Technology Innovation Center in Warren, Michigan, and expects to hire up to 1,500 high-tech employees over the next several years to support the company’s expanding focus on IT services.

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The maker also plans to add 500 more jobs at another center in Austin, Texas.

“We’re currently seeking the next generation of game-changers to help us usher in a new age of automotive innovation at GM,” said GM Chief Information Officer Randy Mott.

The IT Innovation Centers will play a critical role in GM’s overall IT business strategy. The maker is looking to create and deliver IT services with new capabilities that will help the company improve its performance, drive down the cost of ongoing operations and increase the level of innovation delivered to GM customers. Like rivals ranging from Ford to Toyota to BMW, the U.S. giant is well aware of consumer demands for more advanced infotainment technology, as well as smartphone apps that can be used to do such things as control the charging of battery cars like the Chevrolet Volt.

To support this approach, GM is moving to a more in-sourced IT business services model as part of its overall IT Transformation, Mott said. GM moved to an outsourcing strategy nearly 30 years with the acquisition of Ross Perot’s Electronic Data Systems or EDS.

GM set up EDS as a separate subsidiary and turned over virtually all IT work to the Texas-based company. GM eventually spun off EDS, which was ultimately acquired by Silicon Valley-based Hewlett-Packard. HP is a prime GM subcontractor but dissatisfaction with its service appears to have been one of the principal reasons for the new move to insource IT work.

The GM Michigan Innovation Center is actually the second of four planned Innovation Centers in the United States. GM last month announced plans for a first facility in Austin, Texas, where 500 new IT jobs also will be created as part of this latest focus on doing IT work in-house. Austin is home to such tech giants as Dell Computer and, along with Silicon Valley, a major center of high-tech R&D.

(GM moving 100s of jobs to Detroit as it relocates its NY fuel cell R&D center to the Motor City suburbs. Click Herefor the story.)

“GM is executing an IT best practice by in-sourcing IT services and making them a strategic part of assuring GM remains a fast-moving leader,” said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group in San Jose, Calif. “This is also one of the best opportunities for IT professionals to work in the automotive industry.”

Available positions include software development, project management, database management and business analysis. GM is recruiting recent college graduates and experienced professionals for these jobs.

GM recruiters are visiting U.S. college campuses this fall and participating in local job fairs targeting IT professionals. For more information and to apply for one of these positions, potential job candidates should visit http://www.careers.gm.com/itjobs. However, GM also expects to hire more experienced IT professionals as it builds the staffs of the innovation centers, GM officials said.

[...] a fast-moving leader,” Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group in San Jose, Calif., told The Detroit Bureau. “This is also one of the best opportunities for IT professionals to work in the automotive [...]